In the Unlikeliest of Places
by Space-facade
Summary: When one of your closest friends is torn apart and then the best man you know dies in your arms, you're entitled to be a little screwed up. Or so Connor thinks. Full summary inside. Connor/Becker pre-slash.


**Title: **In the Unlikeliest of Places

**Rating: **PG-13

**Pairings: **Connor/Becker pre-slash, team!fic

**Summary: **When one of your closest friends is torn apart and then the best man you know dies in your arms, you're entitled to be a little screwed up. Or so Connor thinks. Danny Quinn – new team leader and lunatic extraordinaire – and the inscrutable Captain Becker seem to disagree. Through hide and seek, multiple tea breaks, 500 Little Known Facts of the Universe (seven), prehistoric puppies (anomaly)and Danny Quinn's Infallible Hangover Cures (five), they simultaneously drive him insane and maybe, just maybe, start to fix things.

**A/N: **I had a sudden urge to write fluffy friendship fic. However, this is both slightly crackier and angstier than expected. All bizarre facts contained within are true, except for one, which isn't.

In the Unlikeliest of Places

_Female komodo dragons can fertilise their own eggs._

Connor found the first note in his locker after a particularly trying Sunday.

He had had plans involving a Star Wars marathon and possibly a Chinese takeaway, but unfortunately, seven belemnites in a swimming pool in Shropshire wait for no man.

As it was, when he finally shuffled back into the locker room having indulged in a long hot shower, during which he'd washed a mixture of chlorine and prehistoric sea water from his hair and absolutely not thought about the last time they'd had an anomaly in a swimming pool, he was in a foul mood.

The note was sticking out of his locker, wedged carefully between the metal slats.

Confused, he smoothed it out and read it. The handwriting was anonymous block capitals, the paper torn from a notebook and the information contained within new to him.

_Huh_, was pretty much his main thought. _Weird_.

Later, at home in the flat, he brought it up with Abby, breaking the silence that was almost always thick between them nowadays.

It must have been from her, Connor had decided: it seemed like a fact Abby would know and also like the sort of feminist lizard thing she would appreciate.

'That komodo dragon thing is kind of cool,' he said, because he'd thought about it – marvelled a bit actually – and decided that it really was.

Abby looked up from the book that she wasn't reading and raised an eyebrow.

'What komodo dragon thing?'

Connor hesitated slightly. 'The females fertilising their own eggs thing.'

Abby blinked at him slowly as though she was suddenly unsure of his sanity.

'Yeah,' she said eventually. 'That is pretty cool.'

She might agree with him, but she clearly hadn't sent the note.

Connor was slightly puzzled, but there were bigger mysteries that required his attention at the moment and he simply didn't have the energy to summon any further curiosity.

He'd been running short of that since Nick Cutter died.

Danny Quinn was insane.

Connor, who'd always been a year ahead at school and had been called a genius on more than one occasion, thought he really should have spotted this sooner.

As it was, it had taken him a shamefully long time to realise that 'Danny Quinn is slightly quirky' didn't quite cut it.

It was the anomaly in the fourth floor flat that cinched it.

Or, not the anomaly itself, but more the fourth-floorness of the flat and the fact that Danny had jumped out of its window.

He later claimed that, firstly, it was his only chance of avoiding the giant man-eating spider, and secondly, he knew the conveniently placed swimming pool was so conveniently placed. Connor only believed one of these statements and it was this that earned Danny the upgrade from 'slightly quirky' to 'clinically insane'.

In comparison, Captain Becker was many things, but above all, careful and controlled. In fact, Connor wasn't entirely convinced that Lester didn't simply plug him in to recharge at the end of each day.

When Becker joined the team, Jenny smiled her 'They're All Mad Here, Welcome to My Club of Sanity' smile. Jenny had a wide variety of smiles and Connor had long since made it one of his missions in life – along with reaching fifty and defeating the anomalies – to recognise and label them all.

When Danny joined, he didn't actually get a smile. He got the 'What The Hell Was Lester Thinking?' eyebrow instead, but he didn't run like a normal human being.

Anyway, as it turned out, Lester hadn't been given the chance to do much thinking – Danny had practically hired himself.

It was this polar opposition of characters that was the cause of so much of Connor's surprise when Danny and Becker started their game of hide and seek. Or 'checking the security' as Danny blithely informed an incensed Lester, whilst climbing through the window of his office.

They just didn't seem like likely friends. All they had in common was that they were both new to the team. But by the time that security holes had been discovered in the garage, the menagerie, the kitchens, the aforementioned office of James Lester and an estimated £240 had changed hands in bet money, Connor was forced to conclude that, bloody hell, they'd bonded.

Absentmindedly watching Danny abseiling down from the roof of the control room one Wednesday, Connor wondered what Cutter and Stephen would have made of it all.

_In 1911, three men were hung for the murder of Sir Edmund Bury at Greenbury Hill. Their surnames were Green, Bury and Hill._

He found the second note on a Friday evening.

Friday evenings were when Connor visited the graveyard. It seemed an appropriate time – an acknowledgement of sorts that he'd survived another week.

He was the only member of the team that visited regularly, although the flowers that were often present at the end of particularly bad days indicated that Abby also went sometimes. Connor had never asked her about it, mainly because he didn't want to talk about his own visits. He wasn't sure why he went to see the graves, only that it made him feel better to do so.

Maybe it was simply a matter of doing something to assuage the horrible, gnawing guilt that had taken up root inside him. Survivors' guilt possibly. Or possibly the fact that he hadn't taken the anomalies seriously, had treated the entire thing like one big adventure – _If you die can I have your iPod? _– and now he did have Stephen's iPod because Stephen was dead.

It seemed like the least he could do for them was remember. They might have been replaced on the team, but Connor was never going to stop acknowledging what Cutter and Stephen had done, even if they couldn't see him doing it.

He visited Stephen's grave first because Stephen had died first. Simple logic.

Sometimes he stood, sometimes he sat in the grass. He never took flowers because Stephen would probably have thought that was a bit weird.

And he talked – quietly, naturally, because he didn't fancy any passers-by calling the local loony bin - telling Stephen about the team, about his family and about the frightening attempt to eat more healthily that Jenny had bullied him into.

He'd considered reciting the introduction of Star Wars because Stephen was frighteningly uneducated in the way of science fiction, but that had somehow seemed unfair when Stephen wasn't able to interrupt him with a well-aimed shoe/sandwich/bar of soap.

The one thing he didn't mention was the creatures. It seemed somehow tactless, and yes, Connor was aware that that was ironic, because tact and he had parted ways some time ago and never really reconciled. But it was a fact.

Cutter was the one he told about the creatures. He talked about his work, his research, his attempts to track the anomalies, his hopes of closing them. Debating with Cutter had always been one of Connor's favourite things to do. Cutter listened to him, valued him, in a way that nobody else had. When Connor came up with an idea or a theory, Cutter would instantly rebut him – not in a crushing way, but in a way that pushed Connor, made him think. It was a bit like whacking a squash ball at a wall and then waiting for that exhilarating moment when you swing at the rebound, sending it back far harder and better than you could have before. Now it was as though the wall had disappeared and Connor's arm felt strange when he swung the racquet.

It was Cutter that Connor told about the note. He stood by the headstone and examined the scrap of paper, which had been tucked into his jacket pocket.

The blocky handwriting was the same, but the paper was different – the matte side of a gum wrapper this time. And the information on it was quite bizarre.

'That can't be true, can it?' he asked. 'Greenbury Hill and Green, Bury and Hill?'

His phone buzzed in his pocket, as though reminding him it was there.

It was a text from Danny, but Connor ignored that for now and indulged in some brief Googling.

A few moments later, he had corroboration.

'That's quite fantastically coincidental,' he told Cutter.

Which it really was.

Then he read the text from Danny.

Pub? Queen's Head.

No, thanks. Have plans.

This was a blatant lie, but Connor really didn't feel like a team bonding session. Hell, he and Abby found it hard to talk these days without adding Jenny, Danny and Becker to the mix.

Bollocks to that, came Danny's reply, a mere five seconds later. Found security hole in armoury (!) so the Captain is buying. See you in ten.

It occurred to Connor to wonder how Danny knew that he was exactly ten minutes away from the Queen's Head. He also wondered how Danny could detect lies even through the medium of texting. The one thing he knew was that it was now fruitless to protest. Any man that could take on Lester and win would crush any rebellion of Connor's like a slug under a motorcycle boot.

Fine, he typed back. But just one drink.

He could picture Stephen's eye roll perfectly.

'So, you come here often?'

It was lame, it was cheesy, but right now Connor could barely remember his own name and so this seemed the very height of suavity.

The girl he'd been speaking to – who was remarkably talented, because she seemed to switch between having two eyes and having four – seemed less impressed.

In fact, she only said one word.

'Goodbye.'

Danny attempted to pat Connor on the shoulder. This would have been a consoling gesture, but Danny missed and Connor nearly ended up with only one eye.

Even lacking in such rudimentary aim, Danny was in a better state than Connor. It seemed that Danny held alcohol like some kind of ginger…ninja.

Oh, that rhymed. Connor grinned.

He wasn't quite sure how this had happened.

Only that he'd had one drink. And then that one drink had become two drinks.

Two, four, six, eight…

Becker had vanished around the four pint mark, still without a hair out of place. Connor thought the soldier had given Danny a bit of a warning look, but he'd been a bit distracted by the seriously red hair of a bloke in the next booth, and hence had no brain power to figure out what that might mean.

He'd never been a big drinker, but it seemed that perhaps other students had the right idea because the more even the ratio of beer to plasma in his blood became, the happier Connor felt.

It was a while since he'd felt this happy, so he'd let Danny control events from thereon out.

They'd stopped with beer at about midnight and moved onto tequila.

This had been bad because Connor had danced a bit –breaking one of the 'Laws of Public Decency' Stephen had written for him.

Connor had nagged Stephen to teach him to dance – _Go on then, if you're so good at it_ – but Stephen had refused – _I value my toes unstopped on and my skin bruise-free thanks, Conn_.

Actually the tequila had been bad all around, really. Connor had had a feeling that he might send some embarrassing texts at a point later in the evening. Maybe even to Becker, to pay the man out for leaving him at Danny's mercy.

Then however, there was more tequila.

One tequila.

Two tequila.

Three tequila.

Floor.

_Oh, _Connor thought absently. _Hello, floor_.

There was a canon, a cavalry unit and several hundred riflemen firing and stampeding at will in Connor's head. That was the only possible explanation.

He didn't want to sit up, open his eyes or indeed breathe, ever again.

'Oh my god,' he groaned, 'what the hell happened?' His mouth tasted like he'd been gargling dead mice all night.

'Morning, mate,' said a familiar voice, far too cheerfully.

Unaccustomed to thin air responding to his rhetorical questions, Connor almost leapt a foot in the air. He maintained that the noise that came out of his mouth was nowhere near a shriek. Nope.

He pried his eyes, which felt like they'd been glued shut with slug slime, open.

He was in an unfamiliar lounge, in an unfamiliar apartment and Danny Quinn was standing at the foot of the sofa. His hair was stuck up at all angles like a hedgehog with a particularly bad dye job and he was wearing a tartan dressing gown.

'Fucking hell,' Connor said. 'I'm going to be sick.'

And true to his word, he was.

An hour later, the cavalry and the canon had retired but the riflemen in Connor's head were still going strong.

However, the amount of ammunition being used seemed to be inversely proportional to the amount of coffee drunk and Connor was taking shameless advantage of this.

He hoped to feel almost like a human being by the dawn of midday.

Danny – who had refused to let Connor leave until he could walk in a straight line – had actually been remarkably helpful, once the tartan dressing gown had been swapped for jeans and a shirt.

He'd produced water, aspirin and coffee at the snap of fingers, shoved Connor into the shower and was now humming and frying bacon while Connor groaned on the sofa.

He was, all-in-all, quite disgustingly cheerful given the amount he must have drunk the night before. Connor was green, partly from envy, partly from good old fashioned nausea.

As he lay there, contemplating exactly how one drink had turned into multiple drinks the night before, a delicious smell reached his nostrils.

He opened his eyes. Danny was wafting a plate under his nose.

'Uh?' Connor asked, questioningly, still finding the tool of speech somewhat escaped him.

'Special sandwich,' Danny said. 'Breakfast of champions.'

'What's in it?' Suspicion reared its ugly head.

'Fried egg, bacon, ketchup and cheese.'

The little voice in Connor's head that was supposed to be keeping him on Jenny's healthy eating plan kicked up a token protest and then retired gracefully, knowing that the battle wasn't to be won.

Connor accepted the sandwich and a glass of something orange that he at first took to be juice. Then he sniffed it.

And instantly recoiled, stomach roiling.

'What _is _this?'

'Hangover cure,' Danny said blithely, from the other sofa. 'Homemade, specifically tailored to deal with tequila.'

'What's in it?'

'You don't want to know. Just drink.'

Connor hesitated.

Danny grinned. 'You owe me one, Conn. Drink it.'

'Why do I _owe _you one?'

'I took your phone away last night,' Danny reached into his pocket and flipped Connor his mobile, which was blinking a red light at him. 'You seemed alarmingly set on texting Captain Becker and I thought perhaps I should curtail that.'

Connor felt a hot flush hitting his ears. 'Right,' he said, awkwardly, 'thanks.'

'Drink.'

Connor obeyed.

Ten seconds later, he was spluttering in horror.

'Fucking hell, Danny! What the hell is in this? Is there actually _more _tequila in here?'

Danny grinned at him and got to his feet. 'Them that asks no questions gets told no lies, Conn. Do you or do you not feel better?'

'Feel better? No, of course n –' Connor paused abruptly. Because strangely enough, he did. The nausea, which had spiked, was now receding and the riflemen seemed to be losing to normal healthy neuron activity.

Danny's grin was far far too smug.

'How did I even end up back here?' Connor asked, irritated. 'I thought I said _one _drink.'

Danny shrugged. 'Becker and I thought you needed cheering up. We were just going to have a few drinks – it isn't my fault you hold your alcohol like a _girl_.'

Connor wished Abby, who could not only drink him under the table, but was also a black belt, was around to hear this.

'So you bought me back to your _apartment_?'

Danny didn't even seem bothered by the oddness of bringing a man he'd known for barely a month home with him. 'Well, when you started making friends with the floor, I decided it was probably time to call it a night. You weigh a ton and my place was closer.'

Connor gritted his teeth and got to his feet, clinging to the remains of his dignity with both hands. The movement didn't hurt as much as he'd expected it to and that was definitely nothing to do with the poisonous orange concoction Danny had forced down his throat.

'Right,' he said. 'Well, thanks for everything. I am never going drinking with you again. I'll see you at work.'

'Front door's the other way,' Danny called.

Grinding his teeth, Connor turned around. The last traces of his dignity remained whimpering in the coat closet like a lost puppy.

_Penguins can jump over six feet._

Connor found the third note on a teabag.

He and Abby were the only ones that drank ordinary caffeinated tea in the ARC, but he drunk Twining's and she drunk Tetley's and they both swore there was a difference. Stephen had once allowed them to blindfold him and perform a taste test, during which he'd declared Twining's to be the superior brand. Abby had sulked for a week.

Hey, they were British. Tea drinking was a serious business.

Anyway, the point was, he was the only one that used those teabags, so the note was definitely left for him.

When he read the fact, he laughed out loud in surprise. It was the first time he'd laughed all day, having been having a particularly frustrating time with ADD.

Becker, who was sat at the table, drinking a mug of green tea, looked up and raised an eyebrow. He and Stephen were the only two people Connor had ever met who could do that effortlessly.

Becker didn't actually say anything, naturally, because he seemed to economise his words as though they were in danger of shortage.

'Sorry,' Connor said, feeling his cheeks going a bit pink.

Becker went back to reading the paper.

Connor reconsidered his teabag.

_Six feet? A penguin? Really?_

'Actually,' he found himself saying. 'Becker. Would you mind standing up a moment?'

Becker looked slightly confused, but obeyed.

Connor scrutinised him.

'How tall are you?'

'Six foot,' Becker replied, eyes narrowing slightly.

'Huh,' said Connor and tried to imagine a penguin jumping the length of Becker.

'Connor?' Becker sounded a bit worried.

'Did you know a penguin can jump six feet?'

Becker looked even more worried. 'No.'

Connor considered this a moment more, whilst stirring his tea.

'You know,' he said to Becker, who had sat down again, eyes still on Connor, 'we don't give penguins nearly enough credit.'

Becker was staring after him like he was completely cracked, but as Connor walked back to the ADD he felt strangely more cheerful.

_The surface area of a human lung is equal to that of a tennis court._

The Carboniferous was unreasonably swampy. As Connor staggered into the shower rooms on Thursday, he was wearing what he considered an unfortunate amount of said Carboniferous swamp on his hair and clothes.

The fourth note was written in black permanent ink on his shampoo bottle.

Inexplicably, as soon as Connor registered it was there, he found himself grinning slightly, even before he'd read what it said.

He hadn't given much thought to who was leaving him these notes, or why. He'd just accepted that they kept appearing, they didn't appear hostile or dangerous in any way and they weren't from Abby. If he'd cared to think about it, he probably could have had a reasonable guess at who was sending them – after all, the suspect list probably wasn't that long – but he was already busy trying to explain so many inexplicable things that it was nice to just accept one mystery without trying to solve it.

Connor was shampooing his hair and wondering how on earth it was possible to know that a human lung had the same surface area as a tennis court unless one had actually stretched out a human lung and – well, ew – when he heard a clatter and Danny Quinn climbed out of a hole in the wall.

Connor blinked shampoo into his eyes, inhaled a mouthful of Carboniferous-infused shower water and then spluttered.

'What the hell, Danny? Just – what the _hell_?'

Danny, seemingly oblivious to both the water and Connor's current state of undress, loped across to the door of the shower room. 'No one thought to block the ventilation shafts to the shower room off,' he said cheerfully. 'Think I might challenge Becker to another round of hide and seek. I'm running short of cash.'

Connor stood dumbly, gaping, until he heard the door to the locker room closing behind Danny.

Then he made a dash for his locker and his phone.

Security hole. Ventilation shaft into shower room. Don't let danny get past you.

Twenty minutes later, Danny climbed into Connor's shower for the second time and swaggered off to the locker room with a victorious wink.

A moment later, there was a vicious bout of swearing as he encountered Becker, sprawled casually on a bench with his gun trained on the door.

'Connor!' Danny bellowed. 'You bloody snitch! You just cost me £30!'

Connor looked longingly at the ventilation shaft for a moment, before wrapping a towel round his waist and padding through to the locker room.

Danny was stood, hands on hips, and steam might as well have been pouring from his ears.

Becker, still sprawled in position, looked utterly smug. He gave Connor a lazy grin like the cat that had got both the cream and the canary. This was one of only a few actual expressions Connor had seen on Becker's face and his stomach gave a funny little twitch at the sight of it.

This, however, was swiftly forgotten when one of Danny's boots hit Connor square in the face.

It had been a few months since Connor had had the energy to do anything other than the necessary, but Danny appeared to inspire his reckless side because before he knew it, he'd thrown the boot right back and then taken off with a yell around the room, hanging onto his towel for dear life.

Danny, who appeared to relinquish control to his inner five-year-old with ease, uttered a war cry and bounded after him, pelting Connor with anything he could lay hand to.

Becker sat and watched with a calm, slightly superior expression until a misplaced hairbrush struck him square on the forehead.

He picked up the brush, expression deadpan, and placed it next to him on the bench. No other reaction was forthcoming.

That was, at least, until Danny came careening around in front of him and Becker's foot flicked out.

Danny flew through the air, cartoon-style, and landed in a flail of limbs, prostrated at Becker's feet.

It was one of the most beautiful sights Connor had ever seen.

'Everything all right, Mr Temple?'

Connor, startled out of deep thoughts of reversing the energy of anomalies, and containing magnetic fields into a single point and what pizza to order for dinner, let out a squeak.

'I'm working,' he said, hurriedly. Lester smiled, in a way that suggested both snarkiness, and a faint hint of fondness that he'd never admit to except under threat of torture and death.

'Yes, Professor Cutter used to assure me that staring into space was a significant part of the scientific process.'

Connor smiled weakly. 'Right.'

Lester's smile became significantly more shark-like, but Connor thought the hint of affection might still be there somewhere, if now somewhat tapered with impatience. It was the smile of a long-suffering paternal shark, if you will.

'Do you know what I think, Mr Temple?'

'No?'

'I think that that is complete bollocks and I should never underestimate your capacity to be totally and utterly vacant.'

'Oh,' Connor said. 'Right.'

Lester sighed the sigh of a put-upon man. 'Take a break, Connor. The world isn't going to end in hell, fire and damnation in the time it takes you to drink a cup of Twinings.'

If this had been a James Bond film, those would have been very unfortunate last words (as it was, the world considerately remained disaster-free for the next forty minutes, possibly because Lester had commanded it to do so).

In the kitchen, Connor found Danny and Becker. This did not really surprise him.

He often wondered if the words had been wired wrong in both of their brains. It seemed to him that they had tea days and occasionally paused for a work break.

At the moment they were locked in a battle to the death over a fierce game of poker.

As Connor was pouring boiling water into the kettle, Danny was wavering over whether to raise, call or fold.

'All talk were we, Quinn?' Becker asked.

Danny promptly raised. A moment later, as Connor was hunting for a biscuit, there was a stream of curses as Becker swept the floor, emanating smugness that could probably have been detected on Jupiter.

'Hey Conn,' Danny said, after it had been established that goading someone into raising wasn't, in fact, cheating, but merely an exploitation of poor self-control on the part of the foolish loser, 'fancy a game?'

'Uh, no,' Connor said. Poker was not his thing.

'Spoil sport,' Danny muttered and Connor wondered if he knew he'd just been deprived of easy prey.

Becker shuffled the cards expertly and then began to deal.

Connor opened the top cupboard. Right at the front was a plain white mug that he'd never seen before.

Curious, he reached for it and turned it around.

_In 1896, Britain and Zanzibar were at war for 38 minutes._

Connor stared for a moment. Then he grinned and shook his head in puzzled amazement.

If either Becker or Danny had noticed him grinning at the cupboard like a loon, they didn't comment.

Connor made his tea in the new mug and vowed to look up more about this 38 minute war when he got home.

He was also starting to feel curious – just the tiniest, weeniest bit curious, about who was striving so relentlessly to improve his general knowledge. Yes, it was nice to have a mystery that he didn't have to solve – but up until five months ago, he'd _hated _mysteries. That feeling was starting to return – the itch of missing knowledge starting to build under his skin again.

All of a sudden, he felt cheerful and a bit reckless and really not like going back to work.

He turned back to the table.

'Hey guys, I will play.'

'Took you long enough,' Danny muttered. 'Fiver on the table to buy in.'

Connor sat down. There was already a third hand dealt on the table.

'No. Absolutely, completely and eternally, no.'

'Connor,' Abby said, with a put-upon look to rival Lester's. 'It's just one drink. We're all going. It's my _birthday_.'

'I don't care,' Connor told her. 'I am _not_ going drinking with him,' - he waved a hand in Danny's general direction – 'ever again.'

Abby rolled her eyes. 'I'll protect you from him, I promise.'

'No.'

'Please…'

'No.'

She produced her best puppy dog eyed expression.

'No.'

Becker produced his best puppy dog eyed expression.

'No.'

Danny produced his best puppy dog eyed expression.

'Oh, god.'

When Connor next opened his eyes, first on his to-do list was to find the garden shears and cut off his head.

He was in his bedroom, in his bed, stripped to the waist and Danny Quinn was standing over him with a sandwich and a glass of something brown.

'Morning, mate.'

'Whuurg?' Connor asked, which roughly translated as 'Why are you in my bedroom?'

Luckily, it appeared Danny spoke Hangover.

'Abby needed a hand getting you back here last night. She was kind enough to let me crash on the sofa. Here…'

He deposited the sandwich on Connor's bedside table and held out the glass.

'What is that?'

'Hangover cure. Specifically tailored for beer this time.'

Connor eyed it dubiously. Any other morning he would have turned it down, but right now his stomach was trying to crawl out of his throat.

He reached for the glass.

This time, having some idea of what to expect, he didn't spray the stuff everywhere.

He did however have to sit very still with his eyes closed for a minute or so.

When he opened them, Danny was watching him quizzically. 'Better?'

'Yes,' Connor croaked. 'Do me a favour?'

'Hmm?'

'Never ever tell me what you put in these.'

Danny smirked. 'Deal.'

'What happened to my shirt? Please tell me you didn't take it off.'

Danny shifted. 'No, no. You did that all on your own. Becker tells me the Macarena was involved but he intervened before lasting damage could be done.'

Connor buried his head in his hands.

By the time another month had passed, Connor could almost understand why certain members of the team took so many tea breaks. They were strangely addictive.

He particularly enjoyed Thursdays. Thursdays were canasta days and this was the one card game Connor could actually play.

At least, he could until Jenny joined the party. Once Jenny was present, they had four players and so Danny insisted that they play in pairs.

He also insisted that he be partnered with Jenny, for reasons Connor didn't want to think about lest they involve certain carnal desires of Danny's that ought not to be thought about, now or ever.

Alarmingly, Jenny didn't protest.

That left Connor with Captain Becker and despite several months of encounters; he still didn't know the man particularly well.

This turned out to be the beginning of the end of his victorious canasta reign.

It reminded Connor strongly of an afternoon the previous year, when, bored out of their skulls he, Cutter, Stephen and Abby had attempted pairs canasta.

Connor had been paired with Abby and they'd lost so badly that Connor had privately attempted to blank the occasion from his memory.

Becker was ruthless. He seemed to have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly when to ride along on the coat tails of Connor's decent hand and exactly when to sell him out.

It was only after six hands, six hundred points (a devastatingly low total) and six tiny eyebrow twitches from Becker that Connor realised the soldier was enjoying it.

The bastard.

_A pregnant goldfish is called a twit._

Another month passed and then it was the anniversary of their first expedition through an anomaly.

Connor might have been merrily oblivious to some social signals, but even he had been able to tell that Cutter's return from the Permian era had been the beginning of the end.

He went to the graveyard, even though it wasn't a Friday.

The sixth note was resting on the dashboard of his car, written on a scrap of the very thick, expensive stationary that Lester favoured.

Connor huffed a laugh – one that was curtailed fairly quickly – but a laugh nevertheless. It was more than he'd managed the day so far.

Briefly, he rested his head against the steering wheel and then got out of the car.

There were flowers on Stephen's grave this time. Yellow roses - everlasting friendship – not that flower language was something Connor would ever admit to knowing.

Abby had beaten him here, then. It was strangely comforting to know that he wasn't the only one for whom this particular day was highlighted in foot high flashing neon letters.

He didn't spend long with Stephen this time. Just stood for a moment remembering that Stephen favoured a rifle over a handgun, hated beetroot and was the only one to ever eat Cutter's cooking. Somehow it was important that these things not be forgotten

Then he gently touched the inscription on the headstone – _Loved for all time_ – and moved on.

He stood with Cutter for a long time, eyes dry and burning.

Then finally, when shadows were falling long over the graveyard, he turned away.

As he was heading back to the car, he passed another row of headstones, in a different part of the grounds. A man was stood, back to Connor, head bent.

Connor registered him out of the corner of his eye and almost went straight past, when suddenly a lone neuron lit up in recognition.

That was…

'Becker?'

The man swung around, hand instantly moving to his shoulder, to a holster that wasn't there.

Then the shadows dropped and the adrenaline ebbed and the man's features shifted into the familiar face of the ARC's military captain.

'Connor,' Becker said. 'What are you doing here?'

Connor didn't have the energy to point out the foolishness of that question. 'I was just…' he gestured back the way he'd come. 'You know.'

Becker nodded.

Connor took a step forward. 'What are you…? Who…?'

Becker shifted slightly sideways so that Connor could see the grave behind him.

_Thomas Andrew Ryan._

Connor inhaled on a shocked breath. How could he have forgotten that the anniversary of everything going wrong was actually the anniversary of the day Tom Ryan had died?

'Oh,' was all he could manage.

Becker smiled slightly, as though he knew exactly what was going through Connor's head and was well used to it.

All of a sudden Connor felt horribly horribly guilty. 'Did you - did you know him well?'

Becker shrugged a little. 'Well enough. He was my CO for four years, when I first joined up.'

Connor had no idea what else to say. He settled for studying the headstone, which was remarkably simple – just a name, birth date and death date.

'There's no inscription.'

Becker huffed. 'No. He wouldn't have wanted one, I expect. Always was a modest bugger.'

There was a silence and then Connor found himself saying the words that he'd hardly been able to stand other people saying to him. Now he understood the compulsion to do so.

'I'm sorry,' he told Becker.

Becker made a quiet noise in his throat that somehow seemed to encompass everything that couldn't be said and couldn't be undone.

They stood in silence for a moment longer. Connor felt wrung out, completely raw, as though to speak another word might physically hurt. Becker, perhaps understanding this, didn't speak.

And Connor contemplated, for the first time, that his team weren't the only ones to have lost people.

_Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike competition._

The seventh note was written on a pack of cards. Quite literally – Connor pulled the pack out of its box one Monday afternoon and the words were written across the backs.

It took him two or three minutes to rearrange the cards into a comprehensible sentence but when he did, he grinned and showed Danny.

Danny laughed and said, 'Such is the way of the world,' (whatever that meant) and they got straight down to the serious business of Silent Irish Snap.

Lester walked in after ten minutes, clapped eyes on them huddled in a circle silently throwing down cards and occasionally – and seemingly randomly - frantically slamming the table and walked straight back out.

Connor, who was well aware that this was one of the more ridiculous card games, didn't particularly blame him.

He was just down to five cards in his hand when the anomaly alert went off.

'Such is the way of the world,' Danny said, again and Connor and Becker groaned in unison.

It was then decided, in the car on the way to a warehouse off the M25, that Danny should not try to be philosophical because it really didn't suit him.

Truth be told, Connor was a bit on edge. In the back of the truck was a silver box and in that silver box was Anomaly Locking Device, Attempt Six, which really, when someone involved next had a bit of free time, required a snazzier name.

Connor had got the hang of the basics of anomaly locking a month or so ago. But he'd kept tinkering, adding bits, removing bits, and generally doing what Lester referred to as 'his thing'. And he had a really good feeling about Attempt Six.

It was sleek, it was modern, it was one hundred percent fully functioning – hell, it was probably even eco-friendly.

Best of all, it didn't involve any components made from Abby's hardware.

When they reached the anomaly, Danny and Abby took off to check the surrounding area and Connor was left to fiddle around and set up.

Becker stood by his shoulder, a constant presence reassuring that, should something large and scaly emerge from the past, Connor would not be eaten as an appetiser. He appreciated that.

After a few moments Attempt Six was primed, aimed and ready.

Connor took a deep breath and pressed the button.

There was a whir and with the quiet understatement of the truly dignified, Attempt Six locked the anomaly.

There was no hesitation, no flickering, no re-opening, no nasty clunk and certainly no explosion (rest in peace, Attempt Two).

'_Yes_!_' _Connor shouted and with a leap he performed a quick victory caper. Both Becker and Attempt Six watched with neutral expressions.

Connor laughed, feeling a tiny bit out of control.

Discovery, explanation, tracking and now control.

They were on their way to beating the anomalies.

Later that evening, Connor pulled in outside the graveyard. The scene was exactly the same as every other Friday, except for one thing.

There was a large and very familiar truck parked across the road and an equally familiar man was leaning against it.

'Becker?' Connor said, trying to sound alarmed and horrified in as polite a way as possible.

'So you do come here every Friday,' Becker said, as though him being present was the most normal thing in the world.

'Um,' Connor said, 'yes?'

'Good,' Becker said, sounding satisfied. 'I did wonder.' There was a pause, during which Connor stared at Becker in complete confusion, before the soldier gestured at the gate into the churchyard, 'well, go on then. I'll wait.'

_Wait? _

'Um, right,' Connor said again, and as the surprise at being completely ambushed appeared to have momentarily short-circuited his brain, he simply put one foot in front of the other and obeyed.

'Becker's here,' he told Stephen, five minutes later. 'As in _here_. As in _outside, right now, waiting for me_.'

This was one of those occasions when Connor couldn't think of a single reasonable explanation for human behaviour.

Had Becker been – following him?

'Because that would be weird and creepy and a bit stalkerish,' he said.

_Or it could be because he's worried_.

Connor didn't need Stephen to still be breathing to know that was what he would say. Stephen had a way of always seeing the best in the oddest people – Helen, for example – and Connor had a very strong feeling that Becker was someone Stephen would have approved of.

They'd probably have compared guns and raised their eyebrows at each other, whilst being hopelessly macho in a way Connor could never hope to achieve.

'Well, you're no help,' he snapped and went to tell Cutter about his much cherished Attempt Six. There was no point in asking the Professor about Becker's behaviour. Next to Cutter, Connor's people skills rivalled Jeremy Kyle's.

Five minutes later, tale of success recounted, Connor was heading back to his car and hoping against hope that Becker would be gone.

He wasn't, because this was Connor's life.

'Let's go to the pub,' Becker said.

'Is Danny coming?' This was always Connor's immediate reaction nowadays.

Becker looked faintly amused. 'No. Your virtue is safe, I promise.'

Connor could have said no. He should have, wanted to, but somehow his mouth opened and he said yes.

Yeah, he didn't know why either.

They went to the Queen's Head. Becker commandeered a table at the back, pushed Connor into a chair using the force of a stern look and then vanished to the bar.

When he returned, he was carrying three pints of beer and Danny was bounding along behind him like a disobedient ginger bloodhound attempting 'heel'.

Connor wondered if it was too late to make a run for the door.

'You said he wasn't coming,' he accused Becker.

The soldier looked unmoved. 'I lied.'

Danny sat down and fixed Connor with sad eyes. 'Anyone would think you didn't trust me, Conn.'

'Yeah, well, every time I come in here, the barman gives me weird looks and that's entirely your fault.'

Danny took a sip of beer. 'I,' he said pointedly, 'am not the one that took off my shirt and tried to teach a pot plant the Funky Chicken. That was entirely your own work.'

'_Anyway_,' Becker cut in, before Connor could strangle Danny, die of humiliation, or both. 'Shall we get to the point?'

'Yes,' Connor said. 'Did you _follow _me this afternoon?'

Becker didn't look as though he considered this odd behaviour in the slightest. 'Yes.'

'Well, technically, we knew where you were going to be, so it wasn't following, more…'

'Stalking,' Connor said. 'Thanks for the clarification, Danny.'

Danny shrugged. 'Anyway, we wanted to talk to you.'

Connor was instantly very very wary. 'About what?'

For the first time since they'd met, Danny's expression became more serious. 'Are you all right, mate?'

Connor blinked. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't that. 'I'm fine,' he replied automatically.

'Yes,' said Danny, with an expression of infinite patience, 'but are you _all right_?'

It was then Connor realised with a shock that this was the first time since Cutter and Stephen had died that anyone had asked him that and actually been looking for a deeper answer.

Abby and Jenny asked, of course, but they didn't need to share Connor's grief, they were already burdened enough with their own.

Lester asked, but he wasn't looking for a heart-to-heart, more a reassurance that Connor wasn't about to go doolally in the field.

His mother asked every week but what the hell was he supposed to say?

'_Well, mum, I'm feeling a bit depressed because one of my best friends was torn apart by prehistoric creatures and then the best man I've ever met was shot by his raving bitch of an ex-wife because she thought he was going to destroy everything and everyone on the planet.'_

Yeah, right.

'Connor?' Danny prodded and Connor realised abruptly he was sat staring at the two of them with his mouth open.

'I'm…fine,' he muttered. It was too much effort to say anything else.

'You visit the graveyard every week, Conn,' Danny said. 'That's not fine.'

'I'm allowed to grieve, aren't I?' There was a bite in Connor's tone now because he really did not want to talk about this.

'Yes,' Danny said. 'But maybe it would be better if you just…talked to someone about it.'

Connor stared at Danny in astonishment.

'Talk? You want me to talk? About – what? My feelings? Isn't that a little…feminine?'

'We're in a pub. With beer. And the potential for pork scratchings. This is a manly conversation.'

Connor almost laughed. Whenever he thought he was getting to know Danny, the man dropped another bombshell. Connor had to remind himself that Danny had once been in the police force, which probably involved a fair bit of counselling trauma victims and the like. He'd just never been able to picture Danny doing that.

'After all,' Danny added. 'You aren't the only one who's lost people to the anomalies. God knows, we might be able to help.'

It was then that Connor suddenly remembered Danny's brother; lost through an anomaly when he was just a boy.

It was easy to forget sometimes, what with the banter and the grins and the madcap schemes, that Danny was just as damaged as the rest of them. Maybe even a bit more.

'Right,' he said.

'I read the reports, you know,' Danny told him. 'About Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart. It wasn't your fault. Nothing anyone could have done.'

'I know,' Connor said.

And he did. Most of the time anyway.

'What were they like?' Danny asked. 'You knew them well?'

'Quite well, yeah.'

'I never met Hart,' Danny trailed a finger absently through the wet ring his beer had left on the table. 'Cutter seemed like a lunatic.'

Becker gave a quiet little snort, which he hurriedly turned into a cough when Danny's eyes flicked his way.

'He wasn't a lunatic,' Connor said.

Danny laughed. 'Well, you knew him better than I did.'

It was such an _arrogant, flip _reply that anger built up in Connor before he could stop it.

'He was the best man I ever met,' he snapped, furiously.

Danny grinned. 'Aha,' he said, 'now we're getting somewhere.'

Connor wanted to punch him for being so insufferably smug and for knowing exactly what to say to get a rise out of people.

'Fuck off,' he muttered. 'It was just – you know how sometimes when you're a kid, you dream about what you'll be when you grow up and then you do grow up and not only is it not what you dreamt, but it's completely shit? Cutter gave me a chance to do something different – something better.'

What he was saying only really registered when he'd finished speaking and Connor instantly went red around the ears.

Danny however, didn't seem perturbed.

'What about Stephen Hart?'

Connor shrugged. 'He was…I don't know really. My 2 AM.'

Both Becker and Danny looked blank.

Connor sighed. 'The person that you can phone at 2 AM if you've killed someone and you need help burying the body. Abby would kill _me_, Jenny would be absolutely terrifying and Cutter would probably have a fit. Took a lot to ruffle Stephen's calm though. Don't think I ever saw him lose it, apart from…' he trailed off.

'Apart from when Cutter found out he'd been screwing his missus.'

Connor winced and glared. 'How many reports did you _read_, Danny?'

'Most of them. You know you have no reason to feel guilty, don't you?'

'I don't feel guilty,' Connor lied.

Danny looked pointed.

'I don't.'

Becker looked pointed. This was far more effective.

'I just – I thought it was a game. I joked about it with Stephen once, about him getting killed. And then….I couldn't have done it, you know? What he did. I couldn't have stepped into that room. He was brave but he was also…'

'What?' Danny asked.

'_Stupid_,' Connor burst out. 'We found other ways. We always found other ways. He didn't have to go and do that, because once he did, once Cutter saw – _that _– we lost him as well. And we needed him.'

Danny's eyebrows shot up.

'You think Nick Cutter had a death wish?'

Connor shrugged, ferociously shredding a soggy beer mat and wondering why the hell, the hell, the hell he was saying any of this.

His eyes were starting to burn and his chest ached and both Danny and Becker were looking at him, eyes intent.

'I think he knew,' Connor said finally, willing his voice not to break. 'I think he knew what would happen when he walked back into the ARC and I don't think he cared. I think maybe he even hoped.'

There was a silence.

'We weren't,' _– I wasn't_ - , 'enough for him.'

'You're wrong.'

To Connor's surprise, it was Becker talking. Thus far, the soldier had been sat stiffly in the corner of the booth, radiating awkwardness. Now, he was staring fixedly at the worn table top as he spoke.

'He did what he had to do, Connor. He didn't have a death wish.' Becker paused. 'He might not have had much of a life wish either, but for what it's worth, I don't think he wanted to die. It isn't your fault, it isn't Stephen's and it isn't Cutter's either. It's Helen's.'

These were not new sentiments to Connor. He'd repeated them to himself hundreds and hundreds of times over the last six months.

Strange, how hearing them from someone else suddenly made them make so much more sense.

'Oh,' he said.

'You're welcome,' Becker told the table top stiffly.

If they were women, this was probably when Connor would have cried and then Danny and Becker would have cried and they'd have fallen into each others' arms and stayed up all night sharing secrets.

Although Abby would castrate him for that particular little piece of stereotyping.

As it was, Connor suddenly felt a bit emotionally raw – although still somehow _better_ – and the urge to talk about something completely trivial was fierce.

Thankfully, Danny seemed to sense this.

'So,' he said cheerfully, 'I think I can feel my testicles receding, so shall we have a game of darts before we reach a whole new level of emotional?'

The speed at which Becker leapt for the dart board was almost inhuman.

It was a Sunday and when Connor got the call-out to the anomaly, he groaned.

When they realised the anomaly was in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, Jenny went completely white.

When, just past lunchtime, an enraged velociraptor swallowed one of the Queen's favourite corgis, Connor thought that this might actually kill Lester this time. He was going to have a small cow, at the very least, and an embolism at the worst.

When Danny was conducted inside to explain the situation to Prince Charles, Becker asked Connor if he fancied a drink later.

It was the first sensible thing anyone had said all day.

Of course, things were never that simple, because once Danny had heard they were going to the pub, he had to come too.

Becker looked inexplicably annoyed by this.

Three hours later, Connor was three sheets to the wind.

Or perhaps more like seven sheets.

Could you numerically extend that expression?

Anyway – he was royally pissed.

Becker had vanished again, presumably home and Danny was currently trouncing a portly businessman at snooker.

And, Connor thought watching, it was definitely unnatural to have that much co-ordination when you'd drunk four pints and two gin and tonics.

Connor was sat at the bar, because the bar was a truly fascinating thing. It seemed to curve, sinuously like a snake. Connor giggled.

'Excuse me,' said a voice.

Connor turned. The speaker was a man – woman? – wearing a purple dress and a large amount of mascara.

'Is anyone sat here?'

Dumbly, Connor shook his head.

The man – woman? – sat down.

After a pause, he – she? How puzzling – turned to Connor.

'You have beautiful eyes.'

'Um,' Connor said, which seemed an appropriate response.

A lacquered nail ran down his arm.

'I could just eat you up.'

That didn't sound like something Connor would enjoy participating in, really.

The man – woman? _Really_, how bizarre – winked.

'Just say the word, sugar.'

The word? What was the word?

Connor's brain flailed like an uncoordinated octopus. What, he asked himself, would Stephen do in this situation? Or Becker, for that matter? They were both cool. Cooler than cool.

Iceberg, even.

Clearly, the way forward was to phone Becker.

'Excuse me,' Connor said.

Carefully he got up, navigated the swaying floor and eventually, after several tension-stricken moments, emerged into the cool night air.

His head swam slightly as he pulled out his phone and then his mind went momentarily blank.

_Who you gonna call?_

_GHOSTBUSTERS!_

No, brain. Be quiet.

_Calling Becker…_

'Hello?'

'Hey!'

There was a distinct pause.

'Connor?'

'That's me.'

'Why are you calling?'

'Iceberg,' Connor said.

'Are you _drunk_?'

'Sozzled,' Connor confirmed cheerfully, 'I need you to rescue me.'

'Rescue you? Why?'

'Because I have beautiful eyes and it might not actually be a woman.'

There was a heavy silence and then Becker sighed.

'Are you still at the Queen's Head?'

This was the funniest sentence ever, but eventually Connor pulled himself together.

'Yes.'

'Stay where you are. Do not move. Do not talk to anyone. Do not do anything stupid. I'll be there in ten.'

Then there was a click and the whir of the dialling tone.

Huh.

Connor's legs were by now feeling rather wobbly and the pavement looked very enticing. He sat down to make friends.

Then, strong hands gripped his shoulders and he looked up and Becker was there.

Apparently Becker could teleport.

'Ug?' Connor asked, because his tongue was having a teenage rebellion.

Luckily, if Danny spoke Hangover, Becker clearly spoke Drunk, because he interpreted Connor's question as the intended 'how the hell did you get here so quickly?'

'It's been ten minutes, Connor,' he said. 'How much have you had to drink?'

'Seven sheets worth,' Connor told him.

Becker closed his eyes and Connor would bet anything he was groaning internally.

'You can groan out loud, you know,' he said and did so himself in case Becker was feeling self-conscious.

But all Becker did was say, 'I'm going to kill, Danny. _Kill _him, you hear? I'm going to lock him in his bloody air conditioning ducts until he starves.'

There was probably something hugely interesting Connor could say in reply to this but he was too busy wondering why the world was spinning.

Then he registered that Becker had hauled him upright.

After that he was too busy passing out.

For the first time in a while, Connor woke up hung-over and Danny wasn't standing over him. It made a pleasant change.

The heavy artillery were back in his head and the dead mice back in his mouth.

Unfortunately, his memory was intact.

He groaned out loud in horror.

The flat around him was unfamiliar which meant, oh hell, he was probably at Becker's. This was so far off the scale of humiliating that it was somewhere in the stratosphere.

Carefully, very carefully, Connor rolled sideways and upright. Unfortunately, care didn't make a blind bit of difference and there was an explosion of pain in his head.

_Christ_.

Once the fireworks had stopped erupting behind his eyes, he focussed on the plain wood night stand.

There was a glass on it, filled with something gungy and green. A note by the side of it read 'Courtesy of Quinn. For gin – apparently.'

Connor braced himself and downed the sticky concoction.

A few minutes later and he felt human enough to stagger out of the bedroom.

He emerged into an open-plan living area, stylishly, if plainly decorated in shades of black and cream.

Becker was sat on the sofa. He raised an eyebrow.

'How are you feeling?'

'Fine,' Connor attempted.

'Which would be more convincing if you weren't croaking.'

Connor grimaced. It was possible that somewhere, perhaps in the far reaches of outer space, there was another situation occurring more embarrassing than this, but it seemed unlikely.

'Sorry about last night,' he said, awkwardly.

'About which part?' Becker asked and there was a previously unforeseen glint in his eyes. 'The drunken phone call, the drunken babbling or the part where you threw up in my car?'

Connor closed his eyes.

'All of it,' he said. 'But um, especially the phone call. Thanks for coming to get me.'

Becker scoffed and got to his feet. It struck Connor for the first time that he was seeing the man in civvies. He'd never seen Becker in jeans before.

'Connor?'

Connor yanked his eyes up to Becker's, fast.

'Sorry,' he muttered, 'and I mean it. Thank you.'

There was a pause and then, to Connor's disbelief, Becker's mouth twitched and then broke into a smile.

Connor's stomach did a little flip but that was surely the hangover.

The next anomaly but three opened on a Friday afternoon in the local gym.

The team, plus Attempt Six, got there fast, but not fast enough.

There was panic and guns and Danny and the upshot of it was that Connor ended up locked in the men's changing rooms with a very angry _Mesonyx._

This would have been more of a cause for concern, had it been a full grown _Mesonyx_.

As it was, the creature running crazily between the benches and making a throaty yapping sound was most definitely a puppy, and possibly the runt of the litter as well.

It might, in fact, not even have been angry. It was entirely possible it just wanted to play.

Either way, runt or not, it was still larger than Connor was comfortable with it being and it had very sharp teeth, as evidenced by the shredded motorcycle boot that some poor fool had left lying around after the hasty evacuation of all members of the public.

'Rrrrafff'_, _the puppy said, leaping onto the bench and then promptly flying off the other side in a mad flail of claws and teeth and tail.

'Where the hell is the rest of the team?' Connor asked it.

'Rrrraaffff.'

'I know, they're bloody useless. Definitely in the doghouse.'

'Rrrrrrrrrr.'

'Sorry, sorry.'

Truth was, the _Mesonyx_ might have been more closely related to the living whale than to man's best friend, but it looked awfully canine. Or perhaps lupine would be a better word.

Either way, as Connor warily paced around it, trying to keep its attention whilst not antagonising it, he couldn't help but wonder if rabies had been around in the middle Eocene.

'Rrrraaaffff.' The _Mesonyx _made a quick lunge at him. Connor jumped back and looked frantically around for a distraction.

Then an idea struck. Reaching down, he slowly, very slowly, undid his belt.

The puppy cocked its head, looking interested.

Sliding the leather free, Connor dangled it enticingly in front of a wet black nose.

'RRRRRRRRR.'

There was a small, delighted rumble of thunder and then a set of pointy teeth fastened themselves firmly to the other end of the belt and gave a decent yank.

Connor hung on for dear life.

But, as he slowly but surely began to dance the lambada around the changing rooms, he wondered if he'd bitten off more than he could chew.

Because puppy or not, it was strong. Really bloody strong.

The puppy leapt around the room, chewing ferociously and towing Connor behind it. He was, Connor thought rather hysterically, being walked by a dog.

Where the bloody hell were Danny and Becker when a man needed them?

The puppy had just started to lose interest in the contents of the changing rooms and was headed for the door to the indoor swimming pool, when there was a crash and the cover of the ventilation shat flew off.

Connor didn't even have to look to know who that was.

The puppy leapt for the shaft immediately, either fascinated or attacking and the belt in Connor's hand gave such a huge lurch that he couldn't hold on any longer and fell flat on his face.

Unfortunately, a side effect of using his belt as an impromptu lead was that it was no longer holding up his trousers and his jeans were now somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles.

It was of course, at this moment that the door finally crashed open, and Becker arrived.

By the time everything was sorted and they arrived back at the ARC, it was gone midnight and the menagerie had gained one prehistoric puppy.

Connor had, at first, been less than pleased about this, but then Danny had shown him the picture of the other animals in the pack.

Turned out the _Mesonyx _he'd been stuck with really was the runt of the litter and it was alarming how much fonder of it he felt once that had been established.

Still, what with one thing or another, it wasn't until he was typing the final details into his report at the ARC that he realised it was Friday.

Or rather – it wasn't Friday. It was now officially Saturday.

He'd missed a Friday evening.

It was stupid. It was stupid in the extreme, but Connor felt unbelievably guilty. He'd been working, he couldn't possibly have gone, but the guilt was still there.

It felt like a betrayal.

He was still sat frozen ten minutes later, when footsteps announced another presence. A mug of coffee and a chocolate bar appeared at his elbow.

'Eat,' Becker's voice said, quietly. 'Then finish your report and go home. That's an order.'

Receding footsteps told Connor that the soldier had left, and more out of habit than anything else, he reached for the chocolate bar.

His fingers ran over the smooth shiny foil on the front and then hit something bumpy and coarse on the back.

Frowning slightly, he flipped the bar over.

A scrap of paper was taped to the back.

_Richard Versalle, a tenor performing at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, suffered a heart attack and fell 10 feet from a ladder to the stage, just after singing the line 'You can only live so long'. _

It was the best piece of irony that Connor had ever heard, but he couldn't quite focus on that at the moment.

Because, Becker? Really?

In his heart of hearts, Connor had thought it was Danny sending the notes. Just because it seemed like the sort of thing he would do.

Not once had it crossed his mind that it could be Becker.

Connor swung around, of a mind to go and find the soldier and demand an answer to the question currently bouncing off the inside of his brain – _why?_ – but found that the other man hadn't gone far.

He was about ten feet away, propped against a desk, face expressionless.

Connor wasn't quite sure what to say.

'It was you?' he said, after a moment of silence.

'Yes.' Typically, Becker didn't give him anything else to make things easier.

'Why didn't you tell me before?'

Becker looked away. He looked almost – embarrassed.

'What?' Connor demanded. 'You thought I'd laugh?'

Becker looked quite supremely uncomfortable.

'Then why tell me now?'

'You missed a Friday.'

Connor's stomach flipped and it was nothing to do with alcohol. It suddenly occurred to him that the soldier must have watching him closely, taking note of details, for weeks now.

'Why?' he eventually said, caving to the curiosity.

Becker shrugged.

'You looked like you were…having a hard time. Sometimes…it's easier to get through the day if you've got something to marvel at, no matter how small it is.'

There was a rather attractive blush creeping up Becker's neck.

'Wow,' Connor said. 'Okay,' and then, 'the 38 minute war? Why was that one on a mug?'

Becker shrugged. 'Something my CO used to say. Whenever you start to wonder what you're fighting for, it's there to remind you that there have always been wars more pointless than yours. You looked like you might be starting to wonder.'

Connor blinked again. He had a feeling he looked like a startled goldfish.

'You,' he said, 'you're actually quite profound, aren't you?'

The blush spread to Becker's ears.

'Don't worry,' Connor assured him, 'you hide it well.'

Becker rolled his eyes.

'Where did you get the facts from anyway?'

'I had a book when I was a kid – '500 Little Known Facts of the Universe'.'

'A book?'

'I can read, Connor.'

It was Connor's turn to blush.

'You should go home,' Becker said, abruptly. All emotion was suddenly gone from his expression. He turned and strode away, quickly passing through the double doors at the edge of the control room.

It was only then that Connor realised he'd been too incredulous to say thank you.

Or even show any positive emotion at all.

_You were right. It did help to marvel. _

_Thank you._

Connor spent the next twenty three hours feeling horrendously guilty. Yet somehow, at the same time, there was a little flicker of warmth in his chest and he realised that, actually, he was _glad _it had been Becker. As unexpected as it surely was, he was glad.

When finally, finally, the next anomaly alert went off, Connor knew what he wanted to say.

And it seemed only appropriate to do so in a note.

The next anomaly, as it happened, spewed out a pteranodon.

However, Lady Luck was for once on their side, because the anomaly opened into an old man's living room, which meant the pteranodon couldn't soar off into twenty-first century skies.

It would have been less lucky had the pteranodon not been very confused, the old man not been ex-Special Forces and the television not been on as a distraction.

As it was, Mr Roberts opened the front door when Danny knocked and ushered them through without blinking an eyelid.

The pteranodon was lying in the middle of the rug, completely insensible. Mr Roberts had broken his walking stick over its head.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so, after clearing it with Lester, they bundled the pteranodon up and back through the anomaly.

It started to come round as they were moving it and by the time they emerged into the late Cretaceous it was starting to struggle.

It was the work of a moment to cut the bindings and leap back.

The creature floundered this way and that, glaring reproachfully at the sparkly thing and finally, with a screech of fury lurched forward into the sky.

It wasn't an elegant take off, more it looked like the pteranodon had had one too many martinis, but it was still one of the most beautiful things Connor had ever seen.

Just as beautiful as the first time he'd seen it in fact.

Different leader, different soldier, different sky. But still beautiful.

Looking over, Connor saw Abby staring upwards with a faraway look in her eyes and knew that she too had gone back to a different time, when they were only just starting out.

Then he caught Becker's gaze.

There was a moment of awkward eye contact and then the soldier smiled and nodded slightly.

Connor smiled back.

Afterwards, he went to the graveyard.

He went to Stephen first, because that was the routine, but he only said one thing to each of them.

'I will make you proud.'

He knew that he wouldn't be coming back, not for a year. He'd come back a year to this day, because an anniversary of watching the pteranodon fly seemed a much better occasion to mark than birthdays or death days.

He was marking a memory, a happy one.

Connor knew deep down that he had been coming to the graveyard for himself, not for Cutter or Stephen. He'd needed to come because he hadn't been able to let go just yet. Hadn't quite been able to admit that the different life Cutter had let him in to could possibly contain such horrible twists of fate.

But going to the graves wasn't the only way of remembering and either way, it wouldn't keep his friends alive.

So, he turned and walked away.

Outside, he was both surprised and unsurprised to see Danny's car parked and Becker waiting with him.

Somewhere along the lines, despite completely incompatible characters, bloody hell, they'd bonded.

They were a team.

Life, Connor decided, could be a complete bitch.

It was full of dead friends, things that should have happened and things that shouldn't.

It was full of anomalies, pteranodons and Reginald, the newly-named prehistoric puppy.

At the same time though, it was full of 38 minutes wars, fabulous irony and penguins that could jump six feet.

Whatever it was, life went on.

But just maybe, if you had things to marvel at, then that was okay.


End file.
